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Re: The Book Buying and Collecting Thread

Book collectors around Toronto might want to check out the Annual Fantastic Pulps Show & Sale this Saturday May 12th,in the basement of the public library at 239 College Street, just east of Spadina.Lots of old paperbacks as well as pulp magazines.A good place to find vintage editions of Fleming, Chandler, Philip K Dick, genuine Weird Tales with Howard and Lovecraft, all the good stuff.

I've seen a few people lately asking where to even find old books anymore, all the used bookstores are closing, so I thought I'd pass this along.

Re: The Book Buying and Collecting Thread

Kudos to you Gymkata and half your luck! Unfortunately (in the sense my Ian Fleming collection is all over the place) I have read all the Bond (Fleming) novels except TSWLM. You're dead right, that retro collection looks fantastic. Best price I could see on Amazon UK was about 113pounds yet on the US Amazon website it was only $38.00US - what an absolute steal. Tempted to buy the set just for show.

Re: The Book Buying and Collecting Thread

Theoretically it arrives today. Let me confirm that this is legit before you buy it...I was concerned that, at that price, it wasn't a complete collection. I couldn't find any information on the listing to indicate it was complete so I kinda took a risk.

Re: The Book Buying and Collecting Thread

Gymkata do you know what the 14 titles are? for a genuine Bond-fan these 14 titles should be tattoo'ed in the brain.All my other brain-cells are structured around the memorization at an early age of those 14 titles.Like if I go in a church and look at the Fourteen Stations of the Cross, I am trying to correspond those images with Fleming's 14 titles.

Re: The Book Buying and Collecting Thread

Re: The Book Buying and Collecting Thread

The set is legit. The box was wrapped in clear plastic (not sure if it was 'new') and showed some wear and tear, but the books all look brand new/unread. It's a heck of a deal if you don't mind a slightly beat up box.

Re: The Book Buying and Collecting Thread

Gymkata wrote:

The set is legit. The box was wrapped in clear plastic (not sure if it was 'new') and showed some wear and tear, but the books all look brand new/unread. It's a heck of a deal if you don't mind a slightly beat up box.

Appreciate the follow up Gymkata. You'll know if the books have been read and by the looks of things I very much doubt it. Don't worry too much about the box; it's just a box that will most likely end up in the recycle bin or wherever. Wear and tear can happen for many reasons.

Display these proudly in your bookshelves and most importantly enjoy the books - you're in for a treat.

Re: The Book Buying and Collecting Thread

so I went to the Pulp Fiction collectors show yesterday. I'm presently between positions so didn't actually buy anything, though was tempted by two James Cain titles I'd never seen before (Sinful Woman and The Root of His Evil). Dude wanted $20- a piece, so my James Cain collection is still incomplete.

One table had lots of Modesty Blaise's, I think multiple copies of all the titles except Cobra Trap (which is the one I need). If I'd reviewed my collection I could have probably upgraded a few volumes. One table had three long rows of nothing but Philip K Dick, vintage paperbacks from the 50s and 60s, multiple cover variants of most titles, alphabetically arranged even from Clans of the Alphane Moon through to the Zap Gun!

Half the tables were old Pulp magazines, Black Mask, Weird Tales, that sort of thing. Others were vintage paperbacks, lots of Mickey Spillane, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Robert E Howard. One table was all old Warren horror comics (Famous Monsters of Filmland, Creepy, Eerie and Vampirella), another had obscure MAD magazine imitations I'd never seen before, as well as several of Harvey Kurtzman's later titles (Trump, Humbug, and Help!). But there weren't as many comics as I would have liked. Some homemade dvd's of old film serials. Lots of tattered old fanzines from before the internet era, when geekdom required more dedication.

As for Fleming: not nearly so much as I'd have hoped, but there were lots of the 60s PANs and Signets, including Thrilling Cities and Diamond Smugglers. A Signet ...Golden Gun where the hype text on the front assured buyers it had been the "biggest selling Bond hardcover ever" (that must have fooled a few suckers). Roger Moore's book about filming LALD. An original hardcover of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang volume III (but not the first two volumes). Most interesting was a hardcover of Amis's The Book of Bond. The seller wanted $150- !!!I've got that in paperback, but the hardcover is a completely different thing, its more like a work of Pop Art, square shaped, with colourful stylised graphics on every page, and hidden underneath the dust jacket is a completely different title, to fool the other spies! Future me is going to be kicking past me for not having his priorities straight, and rationing money to buy stupid groceries instead.

Since this is the Book Collecting thread, I thought fellow Book Collectors would like a report, because it was certainly a cool event, even for a penniless browser!

Re: The Book Buying and Collecting Thread

Thank you for your report CP it takes me back to my bookselling days and book fairs were great fun meeting lots of avid collectors. It seems as if prices remain healthy and with the decimation of used bookshops it seems that book fairs are the only place to actually get to view collectable books nowadays. I did try online selling at one point through eBay but gave it up it as it just wasn't for me, the interaction between seller and buyer is something magical that cannot be duplicated through the internet.

Re: The Book Buying and Collecting Thread

caractacus potts wrote:

so I went to the Pulp Fiction collectors show yesterday. I'm presently between positions so didn't actually buy anything, though was tempted by two James Cain titles I'd never seen before (Sinful Woman and The Root of His Evil). Dude wanted $20- a piece, so my James Cain collection is still incomplete.

One table had lots of Modesty Blaise's, I think multiple copies of all the titles except Cobra Trap (which is the one I need). If I'd reviewed my collection I could have probably upgraded a few volumes. One table had three long rows of nothing but Philip K Dick, vintage paperbacks from the 50s and 60s, multiple cover variants of most titles, alphabetically arranged even from Clans of the Alphane Moon through to the Zap Gun!

Half the tables were old Pulp magazines, Black Mask, Weird Tales, that sort of thing. Others were vintage paperbacks, lots of Mickey Spillane, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Robert E Howard. One table was all old Warren horror comics (Famous Monsters of Filmland, Creepy, Eerie and Vampirella), another had obscure MAD magazine imitations I'd never seen before, as well as several of Harvey Kurtzman's later titles (Trump, Humbug, and Help!). But there weren't as many comics as I would have liked. Some homemade dvd's of old film serials. Lots of tattered old fanzines from before the internet era, when geekdom required more dedication.

As for Fleming: not nearly so much as I'd have hoped, but there were lots of the 60s PANs and Signets, including Thrilling Cities and Diamond Smugglers. A Signet ...Golden Gun where the hype text on the front assured buyers it had been the "biggest selling Bond hardcover ever" (that must have fooled a few suckers). Roger Moore's book about filming LALD. An original hardcover of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang volume III (but not the first two volumes). Most interesting was a hardcover of Amis's The Book of Bond. The seller wanted $150- !!!I've got that in paperback, but the hardcover is a completely different thing, its more like a work of Pop Art, square shaped, with colourful stylised graphics on every page, and hidden underneath the dust jacket is a completely different title, to fool the other spies! Future me is going to be kicking past me for not having his priorities straight, and rationing money to buy stupid groceries instead.

Since this is the Book Collecting thread, I thought fellow Book Collectors would like a report, because it was certainly a cool event, even for a penniless browser!

A late reply. I know but that's the very edition of The Book of Bond I used to borrow from my local library (where I now work) when I was a kid.

Re: The Book Buying and Collecting Thread

caractacus potts wrote:

Most interesting was a hardcover of Amis's The Book of Bond. The seller wanted $150- !!!I've got that in paperback, but the hardcover is a completely different thing, its more like a work of Pop Art, square shaped, with colourful stylised graphics on every page, and hidden underneath the dust jacket is a completely different title, to fool the other spies! Future me is going to be kicking past me for not having his priorities straight, and rationing money to buy stupid groceries instead.

IanFryer wrote:

A late reply. I know but that's the very edition of The Book of Bond I used to borrow from my local library (where I now work) when I was a kid.

Maybe they have a secret room of de-circulated library books everybody else has forgotten about and its still in there somewhere?